Article by stickystebee

The election and inauguration of President Barack Obama has been heralded by many for different reasons. Online casino institutions see this as the opportunity to modify and abolish the restrictions placed upon the industry from the previous Bush administration.

President Obama has declared the issue of the economy as the first and most pressing issue for him to tackle. In order to help repair and strengthen the economy, president Obama will need to find additional sources of revenue for the United States governments. The Online gambling industry sees this as a natural opportunity for the United States government to legalize online gambling and collect taxes from the revenue. Online gambling proponents see this as a win-win situation for both parties involved.

Current proponents present in the U.S. Congress have already demonstrated the potential revenue that could be collected if online gambling was legalized. Led by Representative Barney Frank, a bill could be introduced in Congress along these lines.

Another reason the online gambling industry is hopeful is that Obama has long been a supporter of technology and the Internet. He has promised to continue keeping the Internet free of charge for users. Some see the potential for this promise to further extend to online gambling. By limiting its business on the Internet the freedoms of the owners are not being maintained.

Many citizens dissatisfied with the previous policies of the Bush administration, see the Obama administration has seeking to right what they view as the many wrongs. They see the Obama Administration as heralding in these new winds of change. As a result many online gambling supporters hope that the overturning of the United States legislation prohibiting online gambling will occur. During the presidential election president Obama was asked about his views on online gambling. While his response was noncommittal regarding this issue he did state that he would be open to examining the issue and determining the potential benefits of permitting such online gambling. Also many have learned that President Obama is a skilled an experienced poker player himself. Without a doubt for the first time in years online gambling supporters see a potential light at the end of the tunnel.

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The election and inauguration of President Barack Obama has been heralded by many for different reasons. Online casino institutions see this as the opportunity to modify and abolish the restrictions placed upon the industry from the previous Bush administration.

Millions of people eagerly viewed the recent American election. Millions of people in millions of countries stayed up late to get the result of this landmark election. Barack Obama and John McCain had worked around the clock. They had debated, they had argued, they had spent countless dollars trying to convince the American people – the Joe plumbers, the hockey moms – to tick their box in the voting booth. After the votes were counted, only one man walked out onto the stage the winner. He was Barack Obama. Many have speculated why Obama finally won. In the end, he promised change and after two terms of George W. Bush, it was what the American public, and the world, wanted. 

Barack Obama promises a different approach to politics and a confident press conference recently suggested he was going to keep to the script that got him elected. He told journalists his actions for his first months as president. Obama set out his aims for economic revival, stimulus packages and troop withdrawal from Iraq. It’s questionable whether many reporters in the group had questions concerning online gaming.  Indeed, the 44th president probably has bigger things on his mind. He is the new representative of the American people after all.

When the issues surrounding the recession, the war and fossil fuels have subsided though, the issue of online gaming will find its way into the Whitehouse. Obama’s call on online casinos will choose the fate of gaming in the US. The most important question left remaining is what will the President decide to do; to allow online casinos to operate in the US, or not?  While the 2006 Safe Port Act prevents online gamers from wagering money on online casinos, there are some positive omens that an Obama presidency may overturn the law introduced by the outgoing president, George W. Bush.

But, there are signs of hope for online gaming players. Comments made in the past from Obama hints he’d study the pros and cons of legalising online casinos across the United States. Asked a question by reporters during his election bid, Obama said that he could see the opportunities a regulated online casino industry could bring.  Although Obama hasn’t declared that he’d reinstate online casinos in the USA, his statement has heartened many players and online operators alike.  Obama’s comments from an appearance in Las Vegas, that online casinos was a good economic factor, gave more joy to online casinos wishing to play in America again.

American players shouldn’t be too eager to log onto their nearest online casino though Obama has told a number of reporters that he’s not the biggest supporter of online casino gaming. When a president, voted into the Whitehouse on a wave of change, talks to a newspaper and explains that online casino gaming can have devastating ethical and social costs, online casino companies hoping to run their casinos in America shouldn’t start buying up domain names. He’s also had a track of anti-casino voting, blocking the increase of the Illinois gaming  arena in 1999.

A lot of online casino companies will be troubled by Barack Obama’s wavering opinion on the issue of internet casinos. Although, a President can often change his mind and there may be a possibility for online casinos in America. A possibility, but don’t start dreaming of chips and cards at the moment.

As an occasional poker player, Obama is known for his calm poker game. As a member of the Senate, Obama often indulged in games of poker. He never bet huge amounts, rarely bluffed, and always kept his hand close to his chest. Could there be any similarities between his playing and presidential methods If you ask Obama about his opinions on online casinos, will he just glance at his cards and smiles?

 Given the scale of Democratic gains in The Senate, Obama should have no problems passing a law to allow internet casinos. Whether he will is another matter altogether.  The regulation of online casinos has been seen to provide a large of tax revenue for other countries; battling against a faltering economy and seeing a strong possibility of recession the USA, will Barack Obama be able to give a good reason for keeping the law on online gaming, purely because of  any possible moral protests he may have? No one really knows until Obama starts his presidency in dark nights of January. Until Inauguration Day, American casinos will have little option but to lie back and pray to the gaming gods for a successful throw of the die.

The incoming Obama administration should take a good hard look at online gambling and UIGEA.

During Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency, his major focus was on three major domestic issues: health care, education and tax cuts for the middle class. When asked how these issues would be financed, Obama stated that he would scrutinize the national budget and seize funding for any programs or initiatives that were deemed inefficient or unworkable and suggested he would find new source of revenues that were more realistic. Although the U.S. national budget is a massive and complex structure that has been seriously used and abused for the past eight years, and there are no simple overnight or easy fix solutions to repair the current damage done, here is one of many areas of internal revenue generation President-Elect Obama can look into… The regulation of Online Gambling.

It is not commonly known, but the fact is that online gambling has actually generated over four billion dollars internationally in the past two years alone. Bare in mind that this came with limited U.S. participation since the implementation of UIGEA (otherwise known as The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act). And it is forecasted that the online gaming industry will top fifteen billion dollars by 2012 with or without the participation of the United States. A Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) study revealed that the United States has the potential to collect at least $8.7 billion and up to $17.6 billion in the next 10 years if it would tax and regulate online gambling, including poker. And those figures don’t include potential sports wagers. The $8.7 billion figure did not take into account the 10 states that currently have laws on their books that specifically prohibit online gambling, even though they allow some forms of gambling (Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington). If all the states would tax and regulate online gambling, $33.9 billion in taxes would be generated in the next 10 years, according to the PWC study.

As a matter of domestic issue, there are still many other aspects of online gambling regulation that would need to be addressed such as monitoring for underage activity, policing black market or “rogue” casinos and support for addiction to name a few. But just as we have done in the past with the prohibition of alcohol (which ironically shares many similarities to the prohibition of online gambling including a national financial crisis at the time) We the people of America wanted the choice of whether or not to drink, the free market suggested a potentially lucrative business for both domestic and imported product and our government saw a huge alcohol tax revenue that unarguably gave new life to an obviously failing economy.

Although there are so many other important agendas our new president will face such as the current situation in the middle east, international relations will be vital for Obama. He must show the world leaders that he is not conducting “business as usual” and will fight to correct the international financial blunders of the Bush administration. For instance; The United States (USA) and the European Union (EU) are currently battling over the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) and possible violations of the World Trade Organization (WTO) The EU is accusing the US of violating terms established by the WTO regarding online gambling companies operating within Europe. This is a perfect opportunity for Obama and his administration to bring a “new deal to the table” (no pun intended). This could potentially accomplish two goals; create a new source of revenue for our failing economy and repair a severed relation with the World Trade Organization.

With the current administration ready to implement the final regulations for the UIGEA just two months before being leaving the White House, this is an issue the new administration should address as soon as possible. The potential long term damage this could cause on the U.S. online gambling market would be devastating. However, with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act abolished and a new sensible regulation written and implemented (I nominate Barney Frank for this job) we could create our own domestic gaming institutions and offer them on an international market. We already have tax paying gambling operations here in the United States such as Caesars Palace, MGM Mirage, Harrah’s and more. Perhaps they would like to expand the gaming aspect of their business to an international community. This alone would create huge amounts of additional taxes these businesses already pay.

The bottom line is this; UIGEA was a bad idea from the beginning and it needs to be revoked. The Obama administration needs to carefully look at online gambling and its potential as a major generator for future tax revenue. It has been done before with alcohol prohibition and it can be done with gaming prohibition.

Ok, so he is not president, YET… He likely will be as he is currently leading in the polls by over 10 % with a 6% +- sample error. This information coming from polls all over the media industry, even the Republican ones. Another major contributing factor that will give him and the Democratic Party the all time favored seat of power is that the economy has been in its worse shape since the 1929 depression. The credit crisis has hit so hard, that even former FED chair Alan Greenspan has come out to say he was wrong about certain maneuvers that were taken place during his latest term as FED chair. Major corporations are cutting jobs, others have gone bankrupt, countries such as Argentina and other second world countries have called for help to the International Monetary Fund. Goldman Sachs, the premier investment banking firm in the world has declared it will cut its workforce. And lastly, chartists and speculators claim the DOW might fall below 5,000 over the course of the next year leaving all value behind.

To put it simply, the world is REALLY becoming a difficult place to live as companies and governments struggle to make ends meet all across the board. As far as the online gambling industry is concerned, it was legal for its citizens to play and it was also legal to advertise online.  This until 2004, when a bill called the UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Act) was passed by Congress, therefore making the whole industry illegal. After this took place, many major corporations went broke, and a lot lost a high percentage of income as US citizens were simply not allowed to play and gamble online. Numerous politicians argued the case as the industry would indeed earn billions for the government if properly regulated the industry, but the bills that were recently put into motion such as the one from Barney Frank (HR 5767) fell just short of acceptance.

Some Americans who actually have the means to open foreign accounts and who actually really do want to gamble do so anyway in today’s world as the ban is not properly put into place, and the worst part of this issue is that the government could be making billions if they properly looked at the industry, and regulated it and taxed it instead of negligently banning it. This of course is the main issue as to why Future president Obama would indeed legalize the industry given the fact that the economy has been hit in a sharp manner in this country, and legal entities struggle to survive. In fact, Mr. Obama is in favor of this industry being legalized as he has voted IN FAVOR to government regulation in recent bills. His favorable view along with an economic recession leading into depression might indeed make for a perfect storm leading the government into regulation and the cessation of the UIGEA ban. This point alone combined with the fact that the European Commission has recently formally complained to the World Trade Organization regarding the fact that the USA is acting in an illegal manner by banning foreign companies to trade in their soil (the agreement binds the USA to let this industry and others into action in the US market) are two major points that the new US government will have in favor to lift the ban.